Package: developers-reference Severity: wishlist Maintainers might decide to add a special make target to prepare the source tree for building, i.e., that make target is run by the maintainer after a VCS checkout and possibly before releasing new versions. Possible reasons for this include reducing build dependencies and ensuring that specific files are equal on different architectures. Due to multi-arch, implementing such a target becomes more interesting. Although I do not expect this to be used widely, I think the developers reference should suggest a name for this target to archive consistency.
The package debianutils already uses such a target and uses 'prebuild' as name. The developers reference could adopt this name. I'm not sure if it should be added as "6.1.4. Additional make targets in debian/rules" or be incorporated into "6.7.5. Architecture-independent data" (since the other mentioned use case, reducing build dependencies, is primarily interesting for essential packages). The "proper dependency" part in the quote below could be addressed too. * Russ Allbery [2012-02-17 00:48 -0800]: > Carsten Hey <cars...@debian.org> writes: > > debianutils uses a special make target 'prebuild' in debian/rules to > > update build system related files and PO files before the actual source > > package is built. > > > This basic idea also could be used to build problematic documentation > > files on the maintainers computer before he/she builds the package. The > > other targets would then install the prebuilt documentation into the > > package without the need to build it first. A proper dependency on > > debian/$prebuilt_doc could ensure that maintainers do not forget to run > > debian/rules prebuild. > > > If maintainers choose to use such a target, suggesting a common name for > > it in the developers reference could be reasonable. > > That's an interesting idea. That's very similar to what I already do as > upstream (I build POD-generated man pages from my autogen script, and in > Debian packaging don't bother to regenerate them). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120217101400.gb19...@furrball.stateful.de
